Abstract:
Unemployment has become the biggest macroeconomic concern for most developing countries
and this was made worse by the global financial crisis of 2008. Governments have tried to come
up with various innovative methods to stem it and one such initiative of the government of
Kenya was the establishment of the Youth Enterprise Development Fund focused at alleviating
unemployment among individuals aged between 18-35 years. This research aimed at finding
out what are the external, institutional and internal factors impacting on youth access to finance
from YEDF in Kenya with a special reference to Murang’a County. The research used
questionnaires as data collection instruments. The population of the study was 567 respondents
from which a sample of 60 respondents was selected. The data collected was analyzed
quantitatively using statistical packages for social sciences (SPSS) and presented using
frequency tables, histograms and pie charts. Out of 60 questionnaires administered, 50 were
returned and analysed. The study found that of the three areas under study internal factors had
the most impact on youth access to funding from YEDF. On internal factors education, prior experience and business plans were cited to have major impact on access to finances. While
external factors like taxation and political interference had little or no impact, with length of loan
application form as an institutional factors having the biggest impact.
